Chair



J. B. BROOK July 4, 1961 CHAIR File d 1Vlarch 16, 1960 FIG! Inventor JOHN BURBIGE BROOK CHAIR John Burbige Brook, 132 Blythwood Road, Toronto, Ontario, Canada Filed Mar. 16, 1960, Ser. No. 15,317 3 Claims. (Cl. 297239) This invention relates to improvements in chairs.

Various types of chairs are used for meeting halls and conferences. It is desirable in any such chair that it be of comparatively simple and rugged construction and preferably that the chairs may be nested or stored in a confined space when not in use. To this end various forms of nesting chairs have been produced; however in situations where a large number of chairs are used as, for example at mass meetings, church conferences, etc., it is usual to arrange the chairs in rows and it has been found that when chairs are so arranged they are easily disturbed from their position by people entering and leaving the meeting; thus a row of chairs soon becomes disorientated. Moreover, when chairs are moved during the course of a meeting it often causes an undesirable disturbance. In order to overcome this problem attempts have been made to put rubber feet on the chairs and to utilize some form of attachment which locks adjacent chairs together. Typical of such locking means are individual clamps which are fastened to the legs or cross-braces of adjacent chair. However, the use of locking means of this type involves a considerable amount of work as the chairs have to be locked together before the meeting and each chair has to be unlocked before they can be stored away after use.

Another type of locking method has been to attach each chair to a leg pole which is usually placed at the back of the chairs. Again this method suffers from the disadvantage that the chairs have to be individually locked to the pole, and moreover the length of the pole governs the number of chairs which can be locked together.

It is therefore an object of this invention to provide a chair incorporating locking means which will cooperate with another chair to hold the chairs in substantially predetermined relationships at the same time being easy to disassemble for the purposes of storage.

Other objects and advantages will become apparent from a consideration of the following description in conjunction with the drawings in which:

FIGURE 1 shows a perspective view of a chair of the invention, having part of an arm portion broken away to show the details of construction, and with an adjacent chair shown in broken lines, and

FIGURE 2 shows a cross section on the line 22 of FIGURE 1 of the arms of two adjacent chairs in as sembled relationship.

Referring now to the drawings, the chair 10 is provided with a seat portion 11 and a back portion 12. Seat portion 11 and back portion 12 may for example conveniently be manufactured in one piece of molded or laminated material such as plywood, plastic, etc. Sides 13 may be formed by two substantially inverted U-shaped support portions 14, 15, each support portion being provided with legs 16, 17, 18, 19, and arm portions 20, 21. Support portions 14, 15 are joined together by cross members 20, 21, attached respectively between the forward leg portions 16, 18 and the rear leg portions 17, 19. Cross members 22, 23, are provided with support means such as flanges welded thereto (not shown) to which the seat 10 may be attached by any suitable means such as rivets 24.

It is convenient to make the U-shaped support portions 14, 15 from tubular material which may be easily bent. Arm rests in the form of flange members 25 and 26 are attached to arm portions 20, 21 of support portions 14,

nited States Patent ice 15 in any suitable manner as for example by welding. Flange members 25 and 26 are generally similar in construction (except for one detail to be further described hereafter). Thus examining flange member 25 in detail it will be seen that it is provided with a slot 27 and tab 28. The slot 27 may be suitably formed by punching tab 28 from the flange so that it depends downwardly as shown in FIGURES l and 2. The side of flange member 25 is attached to arm portion 20 and may be suitably curved as at 29 so as to be easily joined to the arm portion. Thus, it will be seen that flanges 25, 26 provide arm rests for any one sitting in the seat and at the same time the downwardly depending tab 28 may be arranged to fit within the slot 27 of the next adjacent seat in the series. Thus, there is provided a very simple method of locking the chairs together in a manner in which they can be easily taken apart. The locking means is formed simply and integrally with the arm rests and does not require any additional clamps or fixtures.

Referring now to FIGURE 2, which shows a crosssection of an arm rest flange 25 of one chair and an arm rest flange 26' of an adjacent chairltl' in assembled relationship the difference between flange 25 and 26 referred to above can be seen. It will be appreciated that flange 26 of chair 10' correspond identically with flange 26 of chair 10. Both flanges 25 and 26' are mounted upon arm portions 20, 21 at a slight angle to the horizontal. Whereas flange 25 is inclined upwardly and outwardly of chair 10, flange 26 is inclined downward and outwardly of chair 10'. The inclination of the flanges is very slight being sufficient only to ensure that when adjacent chairs are locked together the flanges overlap without causing the legs of one chair to be raised off the ground as would be the case if both flanges were horizontal and at the same level.

It is of course possible to have both flanges horizontal if one of the flanges is raised higher than the other by the thickness of the flange. This may be accomplished in the course of assembly.

While the chairs have been shown with locking means formed from the arm rests of the chairs, it would, of course, be possible to have a similar such locking means extending from the seat portion of the chair or in other desirable places. It is felt that the embodiment shown and described represents the most convenient form of applying the invention but it will be understood that Various changes and modifications may be made without departing from the scope of the invention as defined in the following claims.

What I claim is:

1. A chair structure adapted to nest with other said chair structures for storage and to be ganged together therewith in side-by-side relation for use, said structure including: a seat portion of predetermined width; a back portion adjacent to said seat portion and of similar width thereto providing a back rest for the occupant of said chair structure; legs fastened to said seat portion at least for supporting said seat and back portions at an elevation and being spaced apart a distance in excess of said seat width on either side thereof to permit nesting of said chair structures aforesaid; upward extensions of said chair legs on either side of said seat portion; chair arms extending between said upward extensions and spaced apart from one another a distance in excess of said width; outwardly extending slightly inclined flange members integral with said chair arms and providing arm rests thereon; said flange members being of reduced length in relation to said chair arms to permit nesting of said chair structure as aforesaid; a slot in one of said flange members; a downwardly depending tab on the other of said flange members, said one flange member being downwardly inclined with respect to said other flange member to permit overlapping engagement of each said flange mmeber with the adjacent flange member of the next adjacent chairstructure when a said tab is interlocked with a said slot of an adjacent said chair structure to maintain the same ganged together as aforesaid.

2. A chair structure as claimed in claim 1, wherein said seat and back portions are formed integral-1y with one another from a single blank of material.

3. A chair structure as claimed in claim 1, wherein said legs are formed in two pairs, each said pair being formed of a continuous length of tubular stock bent into a generally U-shaped formation with the two free ends thereof providing said pair of legs; and including cr0ss-members extending between said pairs of legs and fastened thereto maintaining them in their spaced apart relationship aforesaid.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 

